Disappearing 4-Patch

I have been working on my latest quilt project for a friend of mine.  Her daughter is turning a year old and so I wanted to make her a quilt like I did her sister.  In fact, her sister was the first baby quilt that I had ever done, second quilt ever as well.  Below is that quilt:

 All of my quilts have been unique patterns and this one was no exception.  I was trying to find a way to use a fat quarter bundle with 5 coordinating fabrics and stuff I had on hand.  I have so much fabric, I should try to use some of it before buying more.  It took a long time to come up with a pattern that was interesting and not just straight blocks and which also used all the fabric without requiring loads more.  This sounds easy, but it really wasn't.

Pinterest is really a great visual place to get inspiration for quilts.  I can search block types and see what people have done for colors and fabric choices.  Some are really creative.  I settled on a block called "Disappearing 4-Patch".  It required 12 - 5" blocks of each of the 5 fabrics and 60 - 5" blocks of my solid, gray in this case.  The tutorial I used can be found here on how to make this block pattern.

Lots and lots of cutting.  Thankfully a fat quarter will give you 12 of these and have just a tiny bit left over.  Scrap pile!

Now all these squares need to be friends.  Sew them together.  Can I just say I love the chain piecing technique?  Quilting would be much more tedious if it wasn't for this!

After some cutting and swapping pieces around, you get a finished block that looks something like this:

Then you take a bunch of those and make a pattern and add a couple of borders.  I wanted to bring out the purple in this (one of my favorite colors and this is for a little girl so it's only appropriate) so I found hues that went with the patterns in the fat quarters.  As an aside - purples can be very tricky to match!

A close up view of the work in progress.  I was impressed with myself on how well all my points matched on this quilt.  Being an anal engineer definitely has its perks.

Then we toss in some batting, put a back on it, stitch it together and throw some binding on and ba-da bing, ba-da boom, voila!

I am hoping the little munchkin likes it.  :)  The next one in the hopper is for my daughter, so there's more to come off the sewing presses.  Not sure who else I am going to make these for now that everyone is done having babies.  Ha!  

Sausage and Pumpkin Pasta

Continuing the pumpkin theme with fall cooking, I stumbled upon this Sausage and Pumpkin Pasta by Rachel Ray.  When I saw it pass the Pinterest feed, I said, hmmm, that sounds good.  Turns out I am getting a lot better at picking out winning recipes.  The bonus to this recipe is that it was from one of her 30 minute meal episodes.

I do want to comment on the set of instructions that were provided.  I consider myself a pretty decent cook.  Not much intimidates me from a recipe with the exception of how long it will take, but that's a recent development thanks to kids.  I do remember spending 3 hours in the kitchen one Saturday many many moons ago making the most delicious stew, but that's something I just can't do these days.  That aside, I still have things to learn.  I am gradually working my way to not necessarily always needing to measure things exactly.  If you have ever watched Rachel Ray cook, you know she's not big on using measuring devices most of the time.  In this recipe, I liked the side note for how much cream to use - 1/2 cup (about 3 turns around the pan).  So, instead of measuring, I just did 3 turns around the pan and I'll be darned if that didn't seem to be about half the container which I know is a cup.  Level up on cooking skills!

I think the only real edit I made to this recipe might have been the amount of sage they called for and what I used.  The recommended 2 tablespoons fresh and I had dried.  The bottle said 1 teaspoon dried = about 2 teaspoons fresh which would have meant using 3 teaspoons worth.  I used two rounded teaspoons worth and thought that was plenty.  Also, I couldn't find "sweet" Italian sausage, so I just went with a pound of turkey sausage.  In my head I was telling myself it was healthier.  Didn't adversely affect the taste at all (well what would we know? It was delicious the way we had it).  We have a great turkey burger recipe that calls for sage as the main spice, so the flavor combination was already a proven success.  If you wanted it to be even healthier, you could use whole wheat pasta and use half and half instead of heavy cream.  While we are health conscience, we let our taste buds have a little fun, so we did not make those substitutes.

I also made the salad that went with this and it was delicious!  I didn't have a golden delicious apple, but the Macintosh I had was scrumptious all the same.  I edited the prep/serving of this because I don't like pre-dressed salads and it was meant for 4 people which would have translated to soggy leftover salad with browning apples.  Yuck.  Instead I just made the salad again the next night.  The pasta was awesome on leftover night too.  Definitely going to be a staple rolling forward for our fall recipe rotation.

Sunday Morning Pancakes

Our Sunday morning tradition is to spend most of the morning in PJs and eat pancakes.  We have a homemade recipe for pancakes I make in bulk and then just make batches every weekend until it's empty and refill.  Being that it is fall and I am on a pumpkin/chocolate chip kick, it was totally a sign when I saw a recipe for Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Pancakes on Pinterest.

It took a bit more effort pre-coffee to make which is kind of a big deal when you have a toddler "helping" you.  It used all of my measuring cups and spoons and dirtied far more dishes than our typical Sunday morning treat, BUT I think it was worth it.  I am not one for saying pancakes don't really need syrup, but these really are good on their own.  To me, pancakes are the vehicle to eat syrup because taking shots from the bottle is kind of frowned upon by health experts.

Anywho, these turned out fluffy and delicious.  They took a bit longer to cook because the batter is so thick, so by the time I got around the eating my pancakes, the rest of the family had finished theirs.  (I eat mine from the last batch).  The recipe actually made about 16 pancakes by my 1/4 cup portions, so we have plenty in the freezer for any other fall weekend we want these but don't want to put the time in to achieve the desired results.

Thank you fall for inspiring wonderful flavors into regular meals.  We will be trying a Pumpkin and Sausage Penne Pasta later this week too.  :)  Could be delicious!

Grilled BBQ Chicken and Pineapple Quesadillas

We are always looking for something new to try at dinner. Bonus points if it's easy and possibly could be tailored to get a toddler to eat it. I saw this recipe on Pinterest and thought, huh, that does sound delicious!

The recipe!

I have never grilled pineapple before but thought it had potential. I started with a misfire getting to grill properly lit (I still have no idea what happened exactly), but once I got going, there was no stopping me!

This recipe come together fairly easily and is customizable to your taste preferences. We had Sweet Baby Rays BBQ sauce on hand (who doesn't?) so we used that for the chicken and as some added flavor in the quesadillas. We opted to skip the jalapeños but I am sure they would have been delicious too. I did devour at least half a "stalk" of the pineapple we grilled. We should have had more cheese on hand, but I was impressed we at least had the monetary jack the recipe suggested. Just not as much as we could have done.

Verdict: We absolutely need to do this one again. The toddler even looked the pieces of it (just not all together).

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

I have a birthday coming up this week and my office mate just celebrated hers Monday, so it seemed fitting to celebrate the two mid-week.  Plus it's an excuse to bake something.  In my world, birthdays are best celebrated over at least a week and more if you can milk it.  I embrace my aging self and try to find the happiness in any age.  Hating it won't change what's happening, so might as well make the most of it.

I hemmed an hawed over what I wanted to make.  Something that could easily be shared, didn't take 5 hours to make, and something I know I would like, after all, it's partly my birthday thing too. :)  I realized while trying to decide what to make I only had 1 egg left in the house (that's what you call poor planning), but to my surprise the recipes I was narrowing my choices down to required just 1 egg.  It was a sign.  It was a toss up between Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies and Pumpkin Oat Chocolate Chip Cookies.  I decided to just go with plain pumpkin.  To be honest, the ingredients list was smaller and that won some points.  It's September, pumpkin is officially the flavor of the next 3 or more months.  Might as well get in on it early!

From my Cuckoo for Cookies board:
http://www.twotwentyone.net/2013/10/pumpkin-chocolate-chip-cookies/

Folks, let me tell you, these smelled like a little slice of fall in my kitchen this evening.  It was a fabulous aroma to enjoy while multi-tasking making lunches and prepping things to go to work tomorrow.

I did let the batter sit for the 15 minutes (ok, I lost track of time, but it was more than 5 minutes) as directed on the recipe, but I was a bit skeptical about how they were going to turn out since the batter was a bit gooier (ok, that's apparently a word), than other recipes I use.  They turned out fine and in fact a bit poofy (not a word).

As is tradition, I snagged a cookie hot off the cookie sheet.  It was amazing!  Sometimes simpler is better!  These were light and flavorful without being too much.  Perfect for a pumpkin sweet fix.  If you like pumpkin flavored things for the fall, put this on your to-bake list.  I am not sure how long they are going to last at work tomorrow!

Strawberry Mimosas

I needed another reason to use my champagne flutes, so I decided to make a cocktail from my Cocktails! board now that I can actually have them again.

http://lauriearons.blogspot.com/2011/07/weekly-inspiration-seasonal-cocktails.html

It was totally tasty and pretty simple.  I think I would strain the strawberry puree since you get a lot of seeds, and in fact it might be easier to just add strawberry syrup instead.  Either way, I got a fruit serving and a bit of bubbly in for the morning. ;)

Salisbury Steak Meatballs

Talk about comfort food.  I saw this recipe while browsing Pinterest and I literally could feel my mouth watering.  I love meatballs in pretty much all forms (ooo, new post idea - Meatball Menagerie) so didn't take much to convince me to look through this recipe.  After reading it through, it sounded simple enough, so I figured this could be one of the last experiments before going back to work.

From my Real Food Board:
http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2014/04/salisbury-steak-meatballs/

I did make the raw meatballs up earlier in the day because I was worried I wouldn't have enough time around dinner time with all that was going on that day.  Honestly, they came together fairly quickly compared to some other meatballs I make. I cooked them and finished the rest of the meal at dinner time so everything was nice and hot. Warning - this meal really does make close to 12 servings.  There was enough to feed 3 adults and 1 toddler for 3 meals really big meals.

I did use their suggested method of cooking the meatballs in two batches. Yum Yum Yum!

Making the sauce to go with these was pretty simple.

Also, it was really "pretty" at the end. And yes, fresh parsley from the garden to top it off!

It was super tasty and filling and a hit with the whole crowd.  I also love that this meal provides leftovers.  However, in the future, if it was just my husband and I with our kids, I would probably half this recipe rather than having so many leftovers.  BUT!  If you have company coming over or a larger family (grown kids), this is an amazing dish.  Add a vegetable for a side and some rolls and BAM.  Everyone will think you slaved and in reality, this maybe took 40 minutes start to finish (the time on the recipe is right on).  Easy peasy and totally delicious!

S'mores Dip!

I don't know who decided that chocolate and marshmallows should be melted together and sandwiched between graham crackers, but I would love to shake their hand.  It's truly a beautiful combination.  Usually the opportunity to enjoy this is limited to over a camp fire, which in my opinion is the best way to have them.  However, we have no camp fires in our future or nearby.  So what's the next best thing?  S'mores Dip!

From Food Love:
http://www.southernplate.com/2014/06/oven-baked-smores-how-to-get-an-autographed-copy-of-southern-casseroles.html

I made this for our last mother's day play date with the babies and I didn't think to grab a photo of this, but I can tell you it was well loved by the mommies and children alike.  The best part?  It's so stupid simple!  I basically just took a bag of chocolate chips and tossed them in the bottom of a 2 QT casserole dish and covered with marshmallows (was about half a bag, but I could have, and probably will in the future, added more).  I plopped it in the oven for 5 minutes at 450* and it was just toasty enough on the top.  We went through 2 sleeves of graham crackers, but that will vary depending on your desired ratio of delicious per cracker.

Great for a last minute dessert and great for groups of people to enjoy.  Although I wouldn't judge if you made this for just your family.  :)  It's scalable too, so if you need to just cover the bottom of a smaller pan and top with marshmallows.  Winning tasty treats!!

Strawberry Balsamic Vinaigrette Dressing

Sometime last year I found a recipe for making Strawberry Balsamic Vinaigrette Dressing through the canning process.  I thought it sounded amazing, but I was past the strawberry season.  This year I planned on picking enough to make sure I could make this.  So at 8 month pregnant I went to the strawberry field around here and picked enough to make the smaller batch which is called out on the site I went to.

From my Canning Board:
http://canninggranny.blogspot.com/2011/05/canning-strawberry-vinaigrette-salad.html

It was fairly straight forward with soaking the strawberries overnight and then boiling the juices with sugar.  Kind of similar to making jam if you have ever done that.  I altered the recipe so instead of all white vinegar, I used half white distilled vinegar and half balsamic vinegar.  On my first batch, I think I got 4 small jars of dressing.  Once sampled I knew what I wanted to make more of!

My parents came to visit over the 4th of July and brought a boatload of strawberries from the family farm in NY.  I froze a lot of them for smoothies which I am quite fond of and the rest were prepped for shortcake, dressing, and eating.

So I stood at the sink cleaning and hulling strawberries into the night time hours (in my very best clothes to boot!).  I of course sampled as I went.  Can't beat fresh berries from the patch!  

The process was a bit more labor intensive with the full recipe in use:

http://www.freshpreserving.com/recipes/strawberry-vinaigrette-dressing

Just more berries to squeeze juices from was really the major impact.  The rest was pretty simple.  I still love this as a dressing and I am so glad I made more than the 4 jars from the first batch.  Scrumptious!  

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

People are always telling me I need to add chocolate chips to my grandmother's banana bread and I consider that an act against nature.  I love her banana bread recipe just the way it is.  Besides, I can make chocolate chip anything else I like, so why mess with a classic?  While strolling around on Pinterest recently I found a recipe for Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins and I thought, ok, those I could make.

From Food Love:
http://www.runningwithspoons.com/2014/06/24/banana-oat-greek-yogurt-muffins/
Also, I am going to stop here and mention how much I like her blog title. :)

These were incredibly easy to put together.  Most because I only had to measure the oats (I used half old fashion to finish the container I had and half quick cooking) and brown sugar.  I eyeballed a 7oz container of Faye Yogurt against my 1 cup measuring cup and decided that was really close.  If a recipe calls for 2 bananas, it's kind of gray anyway.  Bananas can be all sizes, so I figured the small amount that my yogurt might be off, I wasn't worried.  Also, muffins are a one pan deal so nothing like cookies which usually take a few rounds in the oven.

I only baked mine for 15 minutes and they were plenty done.  Mine don't look like theirs they showcased for the recipe, but they tasted pretty darn good.

I even let it cool slightly before diving in.  These are made with generally healthy-ish ingredients (minus the chocolate of course), so if you needed a sweet fix, these would be more acceptable for the waistline than say scones (ie - breakfast cookies).

Teriyaki Salmon

We really enjoy salmon and I have found a few recipes that we just really love.  This is one of them.  This comes from my Real Food board:

http://damndelicious.net/2012/05/30/teriyaki-salmon-with-sriracha-cream-sauce/

I also started to realize in the last week or so, that I have a lot of pins from the Damn Delicious website and all the ones I have tried, I really enjoy.  They are simple and tasty!  My favorite combinations!  They also have published a handful of One Pot recipes which I consider to be the ultimate trifecta; simple, tasty, and one pot mess!  I have edited the side of my blog to include a link to the Damn Delicious blog so people can hop over and check them out.

The recipe for this salmon is pretty straight forward.  I think it makes almost too much marinade for two servings, so I could easily see doing up to 4 with the same marinade.  The only thing I don't like it waiting for the marinade to cool back down.  I usually have forgotten to make this until mid-afternoon and thus, my allotted marinade time is winding down.  To aid in cooling the sauce more quickly, I have frozen cold packs I just drop into the sauce and then wash them later.  I have made this recipe twice and both times I have gotten only about 30 minutes of marinating in.  Still tastes awesome though.  Hopefully, next time I can make the marinade the night before and not worry about it as much.

We made some oven roasted asparagus to go with this and used brown rice instead of white (trying to be healthy).  I didn't make the Sriracha cream sauce the same way because I can't for the life of me figure out what to do with the rest of a canned of sweetened condensed milk.  The good news?  The mayo and Sriracha make it delicious anyway.  It's that sweet with something spicy combination that's just amazing.

If you are looking for a new way to do salmon, I would definitely recommend giving this a shot.  It's now in our current recipe rotation.  Some of the comments on their blog have inquired about possibly doing this with chicken which seems to be a viable alternate if you aren't a big fan of seafood, although you may want to marinate it longer.

Brownie Pudding

How could this even begin to be a bad thing?  I like brownies and pudding, so I would only hope the two combined would be heavenly.  I was not wrong.

From my Food Love board:
http://www.annies-eats.com/2010/02/16/brownie-pudding/

First melt butter:

Then beat together eggs and sugar and add some vanilla:

Flour and cocoa powder:

I sifted these two together because I have learned over all my baking expeditions that cocoa powder can be notoriously clumpy.  Sifted them together is an extra step and one I found quite annoying when I first did it, but now I understand it's purpose and add it in even when I am not told to do so!

Mix these all together and bake:

I would have a picture of the finished product here, but it was consumed extremely quickly and without presentation.  This is the best chocolate fix I have had in a while.  Super easy recipe and super delicious.  What are you waiting for?  Go make this now!

More Meatless Monday

Huh, I could abbreviate this post as MMM which would be kind of ironic since it's about food and good food that makes you say MMMMMM!!!!  Ok, enough about that.  I realized that I skipped over my use of a Pin from last week's Meatless Monday experience.  Truth be told, I used this recipe more as a guideline because I have used a similar approach to pasta toss meals, so this wasn't what I would call a "new" recipe.  Just a new variation of it.

From Meatless Mondays:
http://www.skinnymom.com/2013/04/23/skinny-mediterranean-pasta-toss/

Since I have made a version similar to this, I played around with the ingredients a little more than I normally would on a first go for a recipe.  First, I didn't have zucchini, so that didn't make the cut.  I did not have 10 small sweet bell peppers, but I did have one big one, so I compromised.  I also didn't have grape tomatoes, but had a fresh one from our garden, so I figured it was equivalent in other ways.  I substituted egg noodles for penne because I like it better for a pasta toss.  Turns out I was out of balsamic vinegar (*gasp*) because I had used the last of it to make Strawberry Balsamic Vinaigrette dressing and hadn't remembered to get any at the store in a while (this has since been fixed).  I should do a post on that too - it was the best!  ANYWHO, back to the actual topic, given all those changes, the meal still turned out great.  I even added capers to the mix because, why not?

I think a pasta toss is a great way to blend a lot of fun flavors together.  Mine always include artichoke hearts and sun dried tomatoes with egg noodles.  The rest is whatever is on hand.  But that's my personal preference.  This is probably one of the few meals I really go off recipe for.  So far it has yielded some pretty tasty results.  I would encourage you to try it too!

Meatless Monday Inspiration

As part of our New Year's Resolution we have adopted the Meatless Monday here in our house.  We have been mostly successful at acknowledging it on Monday, but other days are ok too.  At least in my book.  The idea is to focus on not needing to eat meat at every meal.  They are usually healthier meals and they cost less too.  Pinterest has been really good to find meal ideas for this.  Generally I think of pasta, but they have plenty of beans, vegetable, tofu, and grain options.  It's been fun trying new foods.  Some were better than others, but at least we are trying.

Tonight's meal comes from my Meatless Monday board (duh):
http://www.howsweeteats.com/2012/06/grilled-corn-cheddar-quinoa/

Quinoa has become a staple grain in our house and a nice alternative to just plain rice.  According to what the internet tells me, it's also healthier for us.  Bonus.  Like most recipes I was drawn to this one for the ingredients list - I liked them all, and the ease factor of the recipe.  I will say I already pre-grilled the corn and it's been hanging out in the refrigerator waiting.  The meal itself came together really easy (when you have the corn all ready and waiting).

The taste factor/family taste bud test was a hit for both my husband and myself.  My toddler had other opinions, but it could just be the day of the week since he usually loves this kind of stuff.  It's a little weird having this as the main dish because it feels like it could easily be a side to salmon, chicken, or pork.  It was still pretty substantial to stand on it's own though, so either way, it was good and we will do it again.

Adventures in Cooking

Probably the most useful function of Pinterest for me has been recipes.  New ways to try food, find fast one pot friendly recipes, bake amazing tasty treats, and find healthy ways to incorporate the "good for you" food into all of this.  Tonight was not unlike most nights around here.  Hmm, what to make for dinner.  I have chicken thawing, what can I do with that?  Amazingly enough, you can search "chicken recipes" and get answers.  I love the internet.

Recently pinned to my Real Food board:
http://pinchofyum.com/creamy-chicken-quinoa-broccoli-casserole

I had actually been searching the internet for quinoa recipes for my Meatless Monday campaign, so this kind of worked out nice, although definitely not meatless.  I liked how this meal came together, although I am not sure the science behind heating half your liquid then adding half a cup of cold liquid and flour to make the "cream" sauce.  It seemed to work out, but I did need to sift the flour as I put it in so it wouldn't clump too much on me.

My rule of thumb for cooking a new recipe is to follow the instructions as they are written and the ingredients as measured out by the author the first time through.  If I like it as it stands, beautiful, if not, I make notes on what to change should I make this next time.  In this case, I might make the sauce differently than they said to.  I might learn that there is a reason why they explain to do it the way they have it, but that's the wonderful thing about cooking, all the learning as you go. :)

This cooked in the initial 30 minutes they said to cook it for.  Well, maybe it was 35 minutes by the time I actually got to the oven.  At first it didn't look like it was done, but I mixed it all together as they said to and as I did so, it looked like the right consistency.  I added the broccoli and topped with cheese.  I didn't have Gruyere, but they said any kind would work, so I added Jarlsberg instead.  Next time I am sure I'll use cheddar or mozzarella since that's usually what's on hand.  I also used Old World Seasoning for both my poultry seasoning (apparently I don't have this spice?) and the substitute for "seasoning".  That just seems a little random to me, clearly you have a taste in mind, could you be more specific?  I think those two things can definitely influence the flavor of the dish, so who knows if this tasted anything like what the blog author intended.  Bottom line though: I liked my version.  This will be done again.

Things to play with in future makings of this dish:
Change up the vegetables.  I could see doing carrots, mushrooms, peppers, zucchini, peas, corn, etc.  Pretty much anything would go.  Since you add the vegetables at the end, you can cook them to your level of doneness and just add at the end.
Change up the seasoning.  I am not sure what other generally seasonings are out there, but you could always build your meal around whatever one you pick.  For example, if you used Italian seasoning, maybe use mozzarella cheese and maybe Italian sausage for the meat instead of the chicken and maybe peppers and onions instead of broccoli.  If you did that, you probably need to cook the meat ahead of time.
Change up the cheese.  I would say just use whatever you have so long as you like it. :)  My general cooking sense - if you like the flavors individually, why not try them together? If it's terrible, make a note and don't do it again.

Definitely worth having in rotation and hey, it uses quinoa so it's got to be healthier than most things out there. Mark that as a plus!

Oven Cleaner

After yesterdays spectacular debut into homemade cleaners that promise miracles, I decided to try another.  I mean, at the very least I have to be cleaning stuff at least somewhat even if it doesn't get it sparkling spotless like the instructions said it would.  Today's goal - clean the oven.

I am using another pin from my Cleaning Tips board:
http://craptastical.com/oven-needed-cleaning/

I have abused my oven quite a bit.  Sometimes things will bubble over and I'll think, man I should clean that up.  What really happens is I forget about it because you have to wait until an oven is cool before you can go playing in it.  And by then, I have moved on to some other sparkly thing in the house or a screaming toddler or have gone to bed.  Possibly all three.  I get a nice reminder the next time I turn on my oven and there's a pretty obnoxious smell/smoke coming from the oven.  "Oh yeah.... I was supposed to do something about that."  The process repeats until I have effectively burned off whatever I boiled over.  So sad for the oven.

BUT!  Today is the day the oven gets a face lift!  I am sure it's as excited as I am.  I mean, how excited can one get for a clean oven?  I am not even really sure.  Anywho, here's the very fancy recipe:
3-4 drops of Dawn
4 Tbsp. Baking Soda
5 Tbsp. Distilled Vinegar **do not use this much, start with 1 tablespoon and add until you get a good paste.
Juice of 1 lemon = 1 Tbsp. lemon juice

As the website I am using said: Go slow when added the vinegar.  Otherwise you are going to get a mini volcano on your kitchen counter.  Smear the goop all over your oven however you see fit.  Let it set for a few hours and then come back and wipe it down/clean it out with a dish towel.

Before picture:

I told you it was gross.

After pictures:

Notes:
1. I think the mixture is wrong.  Mine was much more liquid than paste, so I would dial back the vinegar a bit.  I ended up sprinkling some more baking soda directly into the oven to get the scour power.  They may have meant 5 teaspoons and not 5 tablespoons.  The picture also showed way more dawn than 3-4 drops.  I think if you can find the mixture balance to get it to a paste, then you are much better off.
2. There is NO way this is just a "wipe" down and bingo-bango, it's miraculously clean.  This still took a fair amount of arm muscle and a sponge with the scrub side to clean the sides of the oven and get the junk off.  And even then, some places did not come clean.

Overall, my oven is cleaner, although not the pristine clean I was looking for.  The oven door is still gross (in my opinion, although less gross than it was).  I think the lesson here is: Cleaning ovens suck no matter how you do it.  This just happens to be the non-toxic version which can be cheaper and better for the environment.  So, take that for what you will.  I have a clean oven and that's really an accomplishment in and of itself.

Does This Really Work?

I am sure you have seen pins that claim they have the newest, most simplest, fancy way of cleaning ever!  I am always skeptical about these claims.  Most are using ingredients that sound plausible, but just not main stream enough for it to be, "oh, of course that would work".  I have a handful of pins on my Cleaning Tips board which boast a lot of these kinds of things.  Today I am going to try this one:
http://www.onegoodthingbyjillee.com/2011/11/goodbye-to-yellow-armpit-stains.html

This blog entry actually did what I am doing.  She explains that she was told about this miracle cure fix it for stains and she was skeptical but she posted before and after results and it seems to work for her.  Since I am able to follow a recipe (the ingredients ratio) and scrub clothes with the best of them, I am pretty confident this will work.

I sweat like there's no tomorrow.  I think I might sweat more than my husband, so needless to say, the shirts I am going to try this on are from my drawers.  I have a lot of free shirts I wear around the house (especially on maternity leave) and I used to wear them out in public.  I wear them a lot less now because they have the funky arm pits.  So, let's see how this stacks up on the cleaning scale.

Mixture 1 part Dawn to 2 parts hydrogen peroxide.  Mix together, apply to stain.  Scrub.

Before:

After:

Overall opinion:
This worked, but there is still some stain on the shirt.  I imagine this is partly because I picked one of my worst shirts to try it on and I have really high expectations.  Also, the pin text called for adding baking soda whereas the actual article did not specify that until later as a "bonus" ingredient.  They also let it sit for an hour then laundered as normal.  I rinsed it after scrubbing and let it dry.  SO!  There are a few things I can try in the future which may help remove the stains further.  I think this could be a valuable thing to keep on hand especially with small kids who manage to wear most of their daily activities from arts and crafts to food to poop.  I have seen it all.  Ha!  It'd be nice to know it can really actually come out though.  :)  

Getting Things In Order

Since I have a bit of time on my hands, I decided that I could tackle some of the more frivolous organizational tasks on my wish list.  First batter up: our pantry.  I mean, who usually has the time to just dive into taking apart their food stash in the busy days of our lives?  If I weren't on maternity leave, I know I wouldn't.  I would be using those precious free moments to drink a glass of wine and read a book.  Anywho, in keeping with the theme of things this month, I did find a Pinterest pin regarding organized/inventoried pantries.

This comes from my For the Home board:
http://www.pullingcurls.com/2014/03/pantry-excel-file.html

It mostly talks about having an excel file for the inventory of the pantry.  I thought this was a good start, figure out what has fallen into the darkest pits of this tiny closet and arrange it in some meaningful manner while recording what I have in an excel file.  I didn't use the template she had because I am pretty good at excel and customizing her sheet to match what we actually had was going to take more work for me than just making my own.  Here's a before picture of my mess:

I am sure this picture isn't going to do it justice, but there was only a somewhat convoluted convention to how this was organized.  It changed every time I stocked it from a grocery trip too.  A summary of what I found:
Oldest expiration date:  I think the oldest date I found was 2012, so not tooo bad.  And it was only one item, so really I think we were doing pretty good.
Most bizarre item: Seaweed snacks.  I guess they were supposed to be like kale chips, but just made out of seaweed.  Clearly we were not interested in trying them.  This is what happens when people give you really weird food to try and you have no intention of doing so.  You take it home, give it a nice cozy spot deep out of sight and when you do some big deep clean months later you realize that you took it to be polite and have no intention of ever consuming these things.
Most Unexpected Find: 6 boxes of chocolate pudding.  I think I just kept buying them 2 at a time thinking, I would love some pudding pie.  Well, I have enough to make 3 pies worth now.  I guess we are stocked for any pudding pie emergency we might have.

Let's just say I filled a trash can with stuff that was either old, stale (marshmallows that were like pebbles), or just something we were never going to use.  I tried to put things back in a manner to reflect the categories I used on my excel file.  Keeping pasta and grains together, bakery items, snack foods, and canned goods on their own shelves.  This is what it looks like after:

It may not look like much, but I now have a better idea of everything we have and more importantly, where to find it.  I also got to sweep out the bottom of the pantry and finally collect the last of the popcorn kernels that exploded all over the place last winter.  So we are cleaned and generally in order now.

The next step is figuring out the best method to update this big excel file.  I am a nerd, but not a very diligent nerd.  I could say I'll update it daily after preparing meals, but I know me.  That's not going to happen.  I also know I don't have time to do an inventory every month, so we will have to figure out something that will work.  In the grander scheme of things, it would be nice to determine a good way to incorporate what gets depleted into a grocery list.  I still have another 3 weeks of leave, so I am sure something will come to me by then.  In the meantime, I have photographic evidence that at one point in time, this was clean and organized.  Score one for me!

Smores Bars

Do you like rice krispie treats?  Do you like smores?  Then this recipe is definitely for you!

From my Food Love board:
http://www.countrycleaver.com/2012/06/smores-graham-krispie-treats-and-tuesday-wedding-things.html
I stumbled upon these about a year ago and think they are the most scrumptious thing ever.  When I get a craving for something sweet, these have been able to provide that "fix".

These come together just like rice krispie treats with cereal, marshmallows and butter.  These also require chocolate chips and vanilla.  (Clearly we are a Wegmans brand family).

The hardest part of this recipe is waiting for the contents to cool before cutting into them.  They are delicious!

Pop Tab Purse

I love funky purses.  I am not one to get really hung up on getting some $400 bag for Christmas or the ever popular Coach bag which almost everyone seems to own these days.  I prefer ones that have some personality but are still functional and aren't on everyone's arm.  So when I saw some photos on Pinterest for purses that were made from tabs of cans, I thought, hey, that looks like something I would like!

The link I am using comes from my Craft board:
http://naomivandoren.com/pop-tab-purse-tutorial/
Most of the references are for Etsy shops which are selling them, but there are a few links that are actually tutorials.  Some suggest crocheting, and others have you putting them together with wire.  I opted for the wire option after I was in Jo-Anns and saw colored copper wire.  I thought, ok, that's pretty cool.  Sadly, I haven't gotten too far on this, but I think it's a good, "work on it when I have time" kind of project.  So this is what it looks like so far:

I picked out a blue and purple colored wire so I will alternate as I go.  It'll be interested to see how this will take shape.  Progress photos will be posted as I go.